


Not Just A Jerk

by deductress



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Asperger Syndrome, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic, Autistic Gregory House, Autistic House, Character Study, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-03-12
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:57:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3434381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deductress/pseuds/deductress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"House doesn't have Asperger's. The diagnosis is much simpler, he's a jerk."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_I'm going to read you something. "Asperger Syndrome is a mild and rare form of Autism. It's typically characterized by difficulty establishing friendships and playing with peers, trouble accepting conventional social rules and they dislike any change in setting or routine." Or broadloom. It doesn't say that last part, but you get my point._

_House doesn't have Asperger's. The diagnosis is much simpler, he's a jerk._

\---

At twelve years of age, Gregory House made the connection that his father wasn’t his biological father – the relief he felt at that realisation was almost overwhelming. Discovering such a massive insight about himself and his life felt almost freeing, if not only just adding another piece to the puzzle that was Gregory House.

At fifteen, Gregory House diagnosed himself with autism, high-functioning to be specific. He’d always known he could be defined as “odd”, “weird”, “unusual”, but had always known there was more to it. In the past he’d been berated by his mother for his lack of empathy when other people were hurt, when people fell down in pain – he didn’t feel worry or care, no, all he saw was a puzzle; how do I fix this? He discovered from a young age he struggled to follow social conventions, basic things like words with double-meanings, niceties, facial expressions and body language, other things too; such as when and when not to talk - not to push people when they touched you ( _even though it felt horrible, and why did everyone insist on hugging him or holding his hand so much? That was one of his father’s only redeeming qualities – no touching, it wasn’t manly._ ) 

Gregory also found himself bothered acutely by sensory issues, lights being too bright, noises being too loud, streets being too busy, tastes being too strong, temperatures being too extreme, fabrics feeling too wrong… The one and only time Gregory had reacted to being overstimulated, by moaning and rocking back and forth clutching his head, had been the first time his father had frogmarched him outside and dunked him in an ice bath in the middle of a winter’s evening. He’d never let himself show any reaction to sensory stimulation after that.

As Gregory grew older, he saw the way mentally/psychologically disabled people were treated; they were pitied, sometimes gawked at like zoo animals, people would walk on eggshells around them – too frightened to say or do the wrong thing should it set off an attack of some sort. His father considered them worthless and felt no shame at loudly announcing the fact, “What’s the point in them being alive if they’re not going to do anything with their lives? They should be left to die. Let the real men live.” It was in that moment Gregory made a promise to himself to never reveal his disorder, nor to let anyone else attempt to diagnose him.

By seventeen years of age, Gregory had gained the title of “School Jerk” – very few liked him, he was known to tear you to shreds with his vicious biting belittling words in a matter of moments if you so much as looked at him the wrong way. Gregory found it was much simpler to keep people from touching him, or crowding him if he insulted them, ( _or their mothers_ ). He also discovered that while everyone thought he was a cold, heartless jerk – nobody considered any other reason for his actions; nobody felt the need to pry any further than what was on the surface. Nobody cared. Such a result was preferred as far as he could see it.

At twenty-three, Gregory was living a life of alcohol, sex and education – it was wonderful. The sensory play alcohol delivered to him, along with the sex (with no frustrating social obligations or contracts) made him feel relaxed and calmed, meanwhile his advanced medical education kept his brain functioning – challenging him on a daily basis as he moved into the field of diagnostics.

When House met Wilson, he was worried for a few short moments someone had finally seen past his callous façade as James squinted suspiciously at Gregory’s behaviour - his eyes calculating, but after another unkind joke about his wife the younger man just grinned, shook his head and announced, “You are one strange and fascinating man House.”

Upon gaining his team at Princeton-Plainsboro teaching hospital, again Gregory feared someone might identify a “symptom”, put two and two together and come up with an answer House wasn’t ready to hear from anywhere other than his own mind, but as it happened – they were all idiots. He was the only person with more than two brain cells to rub together in the entire building, ( _well Wilson was a close second_ ), and it looked like his secret was safe to remain so during his time here, as Head of Diagnostics.

“You're not autistic. You don't even have Asperger's. You wish you did. It would exempt you from the rules. Give you freedom. Absolve you of responsibility. Let you date 17-year-olds. But most important, it would mean that you're not just a jerk."

_Breathe. Snap witty comment. Remove focus from me, put it onto the patient. Make Wilson’s heartstrings pull for the patient. Relax._

After the case of the little boy with Autism, Gregory figured he was in the clear and that any second thoughts Wilson may have had were now all but vanished. As it happened, the episode had only caused Wilson’s awareness of the issue to become more heightened – first he noticed the weighted blanket on his next visit to his friend’s apartment, haphazardly thrown across the bottom of House’s bed. Next, he examined the positions of every item in House’s office – not an item out of place, even his beloved ball was always placed back in the correct location after use. Further he observed House’s endless need to pick up anything that fascinated him, turn it over in his hands and scrutinize it closely, verbally making note of colour, size, function, questioning its purpose and origins. When watching House converse with his fellows he noticed the way House would cautiously study their responses, responding with statements and declarations that always seemed like a test – to see what their final response and breaking points would be. Finally, he noted his best friend’s reaction whenever his routine was adjusted or disturbed, badgering people until it was returned to normal, acting almost like a child in a tantrum until things were put to right again, just like the book had quoted.

At forty-nine, House sat in his office, rhythmically bouncing his soft coloured ball off the wall in front of him, enjoying the soft thumping noise along with the pressure of the ball hitting back against his hand when James Wilson walked in, attempting to look casual as he leaned against the door frame – his resigned expression however conveying the truth of the matter, he looked like a man about to walk to his own death, ( _one of his bald kids must have died, beer, pizza and bad animal documentaries it is tonight_ ).

House opened his mouth to voice such thoughts when Wilson cut through him, both verbally and what felt like in that breath-stealing moment - physically.

“House, are you autistic?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently any characters I get a strong interest for I have to make autistic so they can be relatable. Although honestly i don't think the idea of House having autism is all that much of a stretch, he pretty much fits the bill aside from everyone else's firm denial of the fact.
> 
> No idea if i'm going to continue this or not - i am a House/Wilson fan, so would consider writing that in, would that gain support or dislike?
> 
> Constructive criticism welcome.


	2. "The Great Kidnap"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James Wilson reminisces of dramatic times gone by, involving an affectionately named ball (Ball-y) and an upsettingly resigned Gregory House.

House and that god damn _ball_ of his.

It went practically everywhere he did. His ball was always something he turned to in times of need. For him, it provided security in times of solitude. It was regarded by his fellows to be some great antique inherited from his grandfather. There was really no better way of putting it. House was like a child with their favourite teddy and as far as he was concerned, that ball was getting buried with him when he died.

_“Ball-y”. Jesus Christ._ A late middle-aged man with an affectionately named soft ball and no one even blinks an eye at it.

No one questioned it. It’s House’s comfort item. They might not be aware of that exact term, but to be plain, that’s what it was. It soothed House whenever he felt wrong or out of place. If he felt stressed or overstimulated, it helped calm him down and get his mind back on track. It didn’t judge, avoid, or ignore him; it was there whenever he needed it. People might not be aware of the full effects this ball had over Gregory House, but they did know it saved lives and didn’t question it any further than that.

So, as it stood, House was left content with that little ball of his, at least until the day of the _Great Kidnap_. Not my most witty of titles I admit, but it’s fairly self-explanatory.

I’d never seen House so worked up before. This is coming from a man who’s seen House have several breakdowns, drug overdoses, suicide attempts, yet none of them could even come close to his rattled reaction upon discovering Ball-y had been kidnapped, ransom note and all.

\---

“Wilson! _Wilson_!” 

House threw the door open to Dr. Wilson’s office. This alone was not unusual. Wilson watched with dismay as the wood violently rattled against the hinges. “Where is he?” House demanded furiously while digging through shelves and under couch cushions, “Where the hell have you hidden him?” The look in his eyes said otherwise. House was in a state of panic. Something _was_ different.

“Hidden who?” I asked, “Why do you think I would hide someone in my office? Down the back of the couch no less?” Wilson’s usual dry tone responded, resigned yet curiously intrigued at his best friend’s behaviour, “Is it Chase? You know how I hate not getting to join in the hospital-wide game of hide and seek, it’s what makes the day worth living.”

“As long as you don’t steal my hiding place up Cuddy’s skirt,” House quickly quipped back before turning his fierce stare upon the younger man, “Fun and games over sunshine, hand the victim over.”

“Not that this isn’t riveting, playing the ‘What The Hell Is House Going On About Today’ game, but I have paperwork to do, can you cut to the conclusion?”

“Ball-y! Give him back! You had no reason to take him!” House limped forward, one grasping hand stretched out in the universal sign of ‘give it the fuck back right now before I rip your face off’.

“I don’t have him,” Wilson responded, his hands immediately shooting up in surrender at House’s darkening of expression, “I don’t! I wouldn’t touch your damn ball, I know how much the thing means to you. I wouldn’t risk losing my fingernails for stealing it.”

It took but a moment for House’s penetrating expression to crumble and be replaced with a much more open vulnerable one as his entire body collapsed in submission, shoulders slumping, back hunching.

“House, are you sure you didn’t just misplace him- _it_!” Wilson rolled his eyes at himself, now he was referring to the damn thing with its owners preferred gender.

House’s expression didn’t clear, if anything the man looked more crushed, “There was a note. Said he would be given back when I had done the right thing. What the hell is that supposed to mean? ‘The right thing’. Only a coward would use such vague ambiguous language to hide their tracks.”

It was clear House was beginning to get agitated, fingers drumming restlessly on the handle of his cane, eyes darting about warily – Wilson frowned, everyone was well aware the ball was off-limits, who would be foolish enough to challenge House in such a way? The repercussions once they were found out would be on level with the apocalypse.   
“Come on, I guess the paperwork can wait an hour or two – let’s find your damn ball,” Wilson conceded, getting to his feet and following House out of his office and into House’s, where his fellows were seated around their table in the adjoining room.

House completely ignored them, continuing his rifling through his desk drawers and surrounding shelves, his movements jerky and anxious – Wilson could see ball-y’s absence was already having an adverse effect on his friend.

Upon entering the adjoining room, and quietly closing the door behind him, Wilson turned on House’s stooges, “Okay who the hell touched House’s ball?”

Wilson should have expected the following silence combined with the typical various expressions, ranging from incredulously amused (Thirteen), alarmed (Chase), calculating (Foreman) and apathetic (Taub). 

“Seriously guys, whoever stole House’s ball, just give it back now and save yourself the slow painful death on a spit roast when House works out who did it. Never touch the god damn ball – you should all know that.”

Sometimes Wilson felt like an exasperated mother, waggling his finger at his mischievous children as they giggled behind their hands, hiding the cookie crumbs around their mouths. He didn’t get paid enough for this shit.

At their continued blank looks, Wilson’s ire began to rise, “Look, whatever House has done to piss you off – get back at him some other way, or get over it. Just give the ball back now, he needs it and you’ll all suffer if he doesn’t get it within the hour.”

“It’s just a ball,” Taub’s unimpressed tone drawled, but Wilson was quick to cut him off.

“It’s not _just a ball_ , it’s the one thing that keeps House grounded and reassured when he’s at work – either give it back, or start searching,” Wilson ordered, spinning on his heel and heading back through to House’s office, only to look on in dismay at the destruction created within a five minute span.

“House, your office! You hate disarray at work, this will drive you nuts,” Wilson worried, his heart tugging in that usual way when someone close to him was hurting – the need to protect and nurture almost overwhelming in its intensity.

“Doesn’t matter, ball first, tidy later,” House returned in halting sentences, frantically digging through a box on the bottom shelf of his bookcase on his knees, a position which would normally leave House gasping in pain but was evidently numbed in his desperate search.

Ignoring the destruction for the meantime, Wilson considered the next potential person to blame – Cuddy, “I’m just popping out a minute, I’ll come help search after,” he quickly explained before making his way to the Dean of Medicine’s office on the ground floor, noting with satisfaction House’s employees frenetically crawling under hospital beds, lifting medicinal trays and apologetically sifting through patients bags along his journey.

In true House fashion, Wilson marched into Cuddy’s office unannounced, not even with his typical respectful introductory knock, “Did you take House’s ball? And dear god if you have, give it back now before World War III commences.”

Cuddy’s uninterested stare cut through Wilson in its usual fashion as Cuddy let out an ever-suffering sigh, “Don’t tell me you’re falling into the Housian innuendos too?”

“No I mean his literal ball. That thing he always plays with when he’s thinking over a case.”

“Oh, that thing. I haven’t touched it.”

Wilson’s following silence was quite evidently accusatory as he narrowed his eyes in suspicion at his boss.

“Wilson, I already have a two year old child that requires constant supervision with dozens of toys littering the floor of my home, I don’t need another one. I haven’t touched his stupid ball.”

Accepting Cuddy’s response with a bit of reluctance, Wilson admitted defeat and headed back up to help in the search of ‘ball-y’, only stopping once to watch in morbid fascination as Chase lifted the mattress of Coma Guy’s bed on either side of the said unmoving body – his defence at the action merely being a wide-eyed shrug and a, “You never know when House is involved.”

Upon entering House’s office Wilson was greeted with the sight of a desolate diagnostician slumped on the floor, cane laying carelessly off to the side obviously thrown in a sudden fit of frustration, “The search is hospital-wide at this point, I’d be surprised if Thirteen didn’t sweet talk some of the nurses into helping too – were there no clues on the note?”

House’s answering grim shake of head was ignored as Wilson’s eyes swept the length of the note, typed up in block capital letters, obviously to avoid identification through handwriting, “Okay, so you need to ‘do the right thing’ – what immoral acts have you completed recently?”

“Should I respond chronologically or alphabetically?”

“Remember, the longer you spend time snarking at me the longer ball-y is taken prisoner.”

House groaned in irritation, “I don’t know! I’ve laid off Cuddy and Loser, oops I mean Lucas. I haven’t made any recent black or Jew jokes. Nor bisexual or Australian for that matter. I don’t remember pissing off any patients worse than normal…” 

Wilson glanced back to his friend as he drifted off at the tail end of his sentence, his ‘I’m having an epiphany’ expression plastered on, “Oh…. Cameron.”

“Cameron?” Wilson repeated, “But she’s away in Chicago isn’t she?”

“She’d find a way, I’m sure….” House returned wearily, his tone turning soft in his resignation, “I’m not getting ball-y back am I?” 

Disheartened to see his friend so hurt, Wilson curled his hands into fists and set his resolve, “Look, just go home play your guitar and use your blanket for a while, I’ll sort this out.”

If Wilson wasn’t already positive he was going to tear Cameron to shreds for hurting his best friend so, the glimmer of a heart-wrenchingly hopeful look in House’s eyes – only lasting barely a second before it was hidden under House’s disinterested façade – certainly cemented it.

And so, a short ten minutes later, after sending House back home with a promise of beer and Chinese in the evening, Wilson sat in his office waiting for one Alison Cameron to answer her phone, “Hello? Wilson? Is that you?”

“Oh hey Cameron, how’re you doing? How’s Chicago? Oh and by the way, what the hell did you do with House’s ball?” 

“Oh, has House being making everyone’s lives a misery? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get you guys dragged into it, I just wanted to mess about with him a bit. Is he suitably angry?”

Cameron’s normally alluring laugh now only sounded grating to Wilson’s ears, “It would depend on your definition of ‘suitably’. But you’ve certainly rattled him, now your inspiring goal is accomplished – what have you done with it?”

Wilson could hear Cameron’s unattractive snort echo across the phone line, already able to sense her eye roll, “Oh come on, tell me this isn’t hilarious to watch? Taking House down a peg or two will do him no serious harm after all. I only wish I was there to see his pissy reactions for myself – bet he was stumped in the beginning, never even considered little old me?”

“Honestly, he was pretty busy tearing apart his office trying to find his ball first, before considering the culprit,” Wilson returned, his tone edging on condescending while his patience drew short at Cameron’s poor excuse for mind games.

“If he does the right thing, then I’ll tell him where he can find it.”

“What ‘right’ thing?” Wilson barked in his annoyance, immediately being reminded of all of House’s ‘holier than thou’ impressions he’d done in the past of the immunologist. House was right; her overtly moral attitude does wear thin quickly.  
“He comes forward for killing Dibala.”

Wilson’s froze in shock, his entire body seizing and locking in place, “But… That wasn’t… That was Chase,” he stammered, appalled at Cameron’s accusation.

“Physically it was, but we all know that mentally House did the damage. He was the one that twisted Robert’s mind, he made my husband sick and I will never forgive him for that.”

At the end of his tether, Wilson snapped, “Look Cameron, you need to get over this. I’m sorry you broke up, it’s never easy separating from a spouse, but Chase did what he thought was right, he wasn’t ‘twisted’ by House – if anything your condemnation of Dibala and his methods was probably what drove Chase to murder. Now House is one step away from a full-blown meltdown unless he gets his ball back and so help me god, if you don’t tell me where you’ve hidden it within the next ten seconds I’m phoning up Mercy and telling them about _your_ involvement in the Dibala case.”

“My-my involvement? But I wasn’t-”

“They don’t know that, do you want to risk the investigation?”

Basking in the moment of outraged silence, Wilson sighed heavily, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders as Cameron’s meek voice uttered, “But you wouldn’t… Wilson, you’ve got morals-”

“My _morals_ are irrelevant as long as my best friend is hurting. Can you say the same? Do you honestly have no issue with stringing up a man for a crime he didn’t commit?”

At Cameron’s continued silence, Wilson demanded one last time, “Where. Is. The. Ball.”

\---

Wilson arrived back home at the condo by the time darkness had fallen, greeted by the sight of House wrapped tightly in his weighted blanket, one hand dipping into a bag of Doritos while the other flicked through the channels on the flat screen.

“The investigation has come to a close, the case has been solved,” Wilson surmised before plopping down beside a curiously surprised House, unceremoniously dropping a brown paper bag of Chinese in his lap, “The kidnapper was unable to hold strong under torture and the victim freed.”

With a dramatic flourish ball-y was produced before House. Wilson smiled at the gleeful expression which crossed the diagnostician’s face as he made grabby hands and gratefully took ball-y in his tight grasp, lightly bouncing it in a soothing repetitive motion he was accustomed to. 

“What method of torture was this pray tell?”

“I couldn’t possibly say, the CIA swore me to secrecy on pain of death.”

“Shame. Hiding such talents will only lead to endless ridicule and pestering until the secret is uncovered. Either that or I’ll pee on your pot plants again.”

“Shut up, eat your Chinese and play with your god damn ball.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is set around start to mid season six. No particular reason why, it's just the season i was watching when i wrote this.
> 
> Thanks for the kudos, comments and bookmarks - i'm grateful for the response, i didn't think this would garner much interest so it's a nice surprise to see people are reading this.
> 
> Also, i can 100% imagine House sullenly sitting watching Ice Road Truckers, wrapped in a weighted blanket while munching on doritos after a long difficult case, doggedly ignoring Wilson up until the point Wilson climbed under the blanket with him. (But just so he could steal the remote.)


End file.
